G2 Learning Hub asked experts to share creative ways of using social mediafor events. Their article included input from Dilatation Agency: tap bloggers and industry influencers to take over Instagram story as a way of generating buzz prior to the event, engaging audiences during the event, and creating content for our communication channels after the event. The learning hub gets 1.2 million visits per month and is a great resource for businesses to read up on various topics like management, technology, and marketing.

Dilatation Agency is proud to offer free marketing and public relations services to local charitable organizations. We are accepting applications starting August 15th until September 15th and will select one organization per quarter this fiscal year.

Selected applicants may receive services that include marketing and fundraising plans, website assessments, social media management, and media outreach to raise visibility. Project scopes will vary based on the capacity of the agency team, as well as the specific needs of the organizations.

“The heart of VoyagePhoenix’s mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our city. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some of the Greater Phoenix area’s finest artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with our city’s incredibly deep talent pool.”

“The heart of VoyagePhoenix’s mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our city. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some of the Greater Phoenix area’s finest artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with our city’s incredibly deep talent pool.”

You can read more about our founder and her journey in creating the agency in their “Phoenix’s Most Inspiring Stories” section. Here’s an excerpt:

Sheila, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.

Dilatation Agency is a marketing and public relations startup, and I founded it after more than a decade in my industry. I’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies, collaborated with fashion weeks and film festivals, and ran campaigns with various partners from Project Runway, the Food Network, and even the Trade Commission of Peru…

For my day job, I helped employers create marketing plans, raise brand awareness, oversee public relations, manage social media accounts, write blog articles, and pitch editors to secure positive media coverage. I sometimes did the same for my friends who owned businesses. At one point, these friends referred other friends to see if I could help or serve as a consultant…

Dilatation Agency – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from others?
We help brands tell their story, increase media visibility, and get customers.

We help them reach business goals by combining inbound and outbound marketing, as well as removing boundaries that normally exist between marketing and public relations. For example, public relations helps raise awareness and gets people to visit your website. Marketing converts them into customers once they get there. We double the impact by combining both. Think digital press releases that keep SEO in mind so you resonate with human beings but also appear higher on search engines.

With Dilatation Agency, I wanted to make marketing and PR services that are available to big companies also accessible to small business owners. I wanted to keep it affordable and not break the bank. The agency can do this by keeping overhead low, leveraging technology, customizing account teams, and scaling up or down based on specific client needs.

Right now, we’re focused on the food, fashion, lifestyle, and wellness sectors. We’re also working with a lot of women entrepreneurs. As part of our outreach, we’re collaborating with various coworking spaces to host seminars and workshops.

The agency is proud to give back to our community by offering, on an application basis, pro bono services to local nonprofits. This quarter, we’re raising awareness for more sustainable food systems by helping an Arizona-based organization that’s partially funded by the United Nations create several social media and press outreach campaigns.

Check out this article compiling tips on creative ways to build awareness for your brand in 2019. Dilatation Agency’s founder is included as one of the experts. Her advice? Showcase what you can do by using it to help others create content.

“If you are able to build up enough awareness in your product category that resonates well with your target market, you will have reduced the noise of competitors by creating an easy purchase decision for your customers. How? Well, you’ll have successfully eliminated the hassle of researching other options.

Brand awareness definition:

Brand awareness is the extent to which consumers are able to recognize the specific qualities of a brand and associate it with its products or services.

If you are looking to successfully boost your brand awareness, you have to stop using tired and recycled tactics. As previously noted, your target market is always on the hunt for something better. To ensure you make a lasting impression as the most popular option on the market, you have to use fresh and exciting strategies.”

You can read the rest of the article here. If you want the TLDR version, then here’s a quick summary of what others have done that you might be able to apply to your own business building strategy so you can grow this year:

Learn more about Dilatation Agency’s founder in this entrepreneur interview w/ IdeaMensch.

Dilatation agency specializes in marketing and PR for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Learn more about our founder, Sheila Estaniel, in this interview w/ IdeaMensch.

“Throughout the years, my career trajectory put me front and center in the community, collaborating on projects and meeting different kinds of people, including small business owners.

Speaking with many of them, I heard over and over about the challenge of marketing (especially on social media) and difficulty raising visibility for the products or services they offered because they either lacked the time, resources, or know-how.

I wanted entrepreneurs and small business owners to be able to access marketing and PR help with the same ease as bigger companies, but without breaking the bank, especially since many of them did not have the same kind of budget.” Read more

Wondering what’s in a name?

“A lot of the marketing words I wanted to use for the agency had already been taken. I looked up ‘amplify’ on thesaurus.com and ‘dilatation’ came up. I liked it because it’s related to dilation, which is related to giving birth, and it’s like I’m giving birth to the business. Also, your eyes dilate when you’re excited about something, and that’s what we want to do. Get people excited about you and what your company is about.”